


Darksome Devouring

by Greekhoop



Category: The Sandman, Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Chaptered, Crossover, Implied Non-Con, M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greekhoop/pseuds/Greekhoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Near the end of his forty years of freedom, The Corinthian takes an interest in a young Muraki Kazutaka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's been a week tonight, seven days since I first caught sight of him. He's a mirage, a memory of a shadow of ghost that you once saw out of the corner of your eye. By the time you turned to face him, it had already vanished. His hair is soft and silver; his smile is cruel and viper-like. His body is coiled and taut, as though there are tripwires stretched just beneath his skin.

And his eyes...

I've never seen his eyes.

As I lay down to sleep, my mouth was dry and when I licked my lips they tasted like fear, bitter and metallic. Perhaps it had just been too long since I was afraid, and I didn't even recognize what it felt like anymore. Perhaps it wasn't fear I felt at all.

There was nothing to fear. They were only dreams.

I had tried to coax myself to sleep with thoughts of an early class to attend, with the rhythm of Oriya's breathing which I couldn't really hear through the thin walls of our apartment, but could imagine well enough. But, in the end, when I slept, it was out of my control. I didn't even remember closing my eyes, but when I opened them again the hazy edges things have when I'm not wearing my glasses were gone.

I slid from beneath the covers, and I stood. I had no choice in the matter.

What I see in my dreams is a distortion of the truth. Truth too tight around the center, so long and slender there’s nothing for it to do but break.

I take a knife from where there was no knife a moment ago. The weight in my hand, the curve of my fingers around an ivory handle, are more real than any dream. The blade is perfect: curved, sharp, polished, eager. It's been waiting here for me.

They say you aren't supposed to be able to smell in dreams, but I can.

I smell blood.

The air tastes anxious and alkaline, like the moment after lightening strikes. Already I've begun to move, to cross the floor in slow, even strides. The carpet feels warm against my bare feet, like skin, but when I look down I can't quite see that far. The world ends in a ripple of black around my ankles.

I'm dressed, I notice, in jeans and white tee shirt, though I know I was wearing nothing when I went to bed.

Such a tactful nightmare.

Before me, the air shimmers and slowly the dim light surrenders the silhouette of a man. I've seen him before, but his name chokes in my throat. I can't recall where I met him last, but it wasn't so long ago. As I draw closer, the corners of his mouth pull into the approximation of a familiar smile, but the expression never quite reaches his eyes.

I stop just short of him, but all my questions fade away, unasked. And as though in a dream, I can do nothing but watch.

In his right hand, he holds a dagger, and he lifts it so I can see... the dance of light over metal, the fine tapered edge of the blade. His smile sharpens a little, like film fading into focus, and he brings the point of the knife to the hollow beneath his eye.

I can tell by the way his lips part a little in anticipation, by the way a hint of color creeps over his cheeks, that he's been waiting a long time for this moment. His entire life. A drop of blood wells around the point of the dagger as it bites into the soft skin beneath his lashes.

My vision tints red, and as I blink to clear it I feel at last a little ripple of pain.

With a gasp, I force my fingers to uncurl, and the blade I have been holding to the corner of my eye falls away to be lost in the darkness that licks at my feet. My hand snaps forward, anticipating a throat to curl around, but my fingertips are met only by the cold certainty of glass.

A mirror.

My reflection.

It looked so familiar because it was me all along.

My heart is hammering against my ribs, but I draw my hand back slowly. Already, the thin trickle of blood is drying on my face. There is nothing worse in this darkness than me. There is nothing more mysterious or more terrifying. But then, I've known that all along.

"So be it," I say, and in that dark mirror my lips move as though in confirmation.

But then the surface of the mirror ripples, as though there's a layer of water just under the glass. Something deep and cold and unforgiving... Before my eyes, my reflection changes. It's as simple as the shift of cheekbones, the thinning of lips, a subtle change in the fall of hair away from sharp features.

He wears dark sunglasses, so even after all this I can't see his eyes. He smiles like a razorblade, and I know I've pleased him.

"So be it," he says with a little shrug, and grins broadly to show a row of perfect teeth, each sharp as a talon.

He hooks one finger over the bridge of his glasses and, slowly, begins to drag them down his nose. My mouth has run dry, and I swallow hard, lean forward a little. In his eyes… I'll find all my answers. I know this without knowing why, because that's how things are in dreams.

And he pulls his glasses down, revealing the arches of silver brows, the softly shadowed places above his eyes.

And then...


	2. Chapter 2

And then he woke up.

Before the high iron gate, chained and fastened with a padlock to which he didn't have a key, Muraki paused. He shouldn't have come here; he knew that. He hadn't been back to this house - a sprawling Western mansion falling into ruin and memory outside of Tokyo - in four years. It had once bourn his family's name, but after Saki's death he had put the property up for sale and now it had no name at all.

Muraki had never expected the house to sell. The bloodstains had been washed away, but the ghosts and the rumors of murder – parricide, fratricide – remained. Still, the house had been a constant in his dreams, and he hadn't thought it would look any different than the home he had left behind. But the paint had been weathered black as a bruise; the broken windows were jagged like shattered edges of bone.

"I'll be waiting for you," The Corinthian had said, baring three sets of sharp ivory teeth in amusement. "At the end of the world."

Muraki had hardly slept the night before – not after waking from the dream with his hands clenched in the sheets and cold sweat burning his eyes – but he wasn't tired. And he wasn't even trembling as he reached up to take hold of the crossbar that ran along the top of the fence; he pulled himself over, dropping into a crouch on the garden path.

The weeds licked at his calves and overgrown branches tugged at his hair as he started toward the house. It had taken most of the day to get here; it had been early when he had left, and already the sun was low in the sky.

"Christ, Muraki what time is it?" Oriya had asked him that morning, stifling a yawn behind his hand. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Home. I think... I'm going home."

"What? Muraki..."

"I'll be back. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow. I just... have something to take care of."

And then he had left. He had missed a quiz in his anatomy class, and a chemistry lecture. Oriya would be worried, would fall asleep on the sofa or at the kitchen table over a cup of cold coffee, waiting for him to come home.

It didn't matter; he'd had to come here. There hadn't been any other choice.

The front door was locked, but it hung brokenheartedly from rusty hinges. A single kick knocked it open, and Muraki stepped inside the empty front hall. The air smelled of rotting wood and abandoned lives.

He didn't know who had come after he had gone, to move the furniture out, tear up the carpet and strip the pictures from the walls.

"Are you here?" he called, but the dark corners swallowed his words and the silence that moved in to fill the gaps they had left was absolute and deep. For a moment, Muraki wavered on the threshold of the house, considered abandoning this whole thing.

Then he drew a deep breath, leaving the yellow light of day behind as he moved further inside. "I came all this way. So don't disappoint me."

He had never thought about madness before, but now, as he started up the stairs of an empty house, the idea flickered briefly across his conscious. If you lost your mind, could you feel it? Would you know?

He had forgotten something in this house, left it behind all those years ago. Maybe it had been so long that he didn't know any longer how to feel the lack.

The hallway ran perpendicular to the top of the stairs. He hesitated a moment, and then took the branch that led into the north wing. The room at the end of the hall had been his mother's, and the walls were lined with shelves on which her dolls had been arranged like spectators in a coliseum. There had been more than 200 of them, and he remembered walls that oozed silk like water in a cave. All those blind, distant stares.

He had found her in this room, poisoned. Her dead eyes like the eyes of a doll.

There was a clamoring, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, but Muraki ignored it as he pushed the door open. Rust-stiff hinges fought him, and he had to throw his shoulder against the wood, so that when the door swung open it was all at once, with a scream of metal. He stumbled into the room.

Slowly, he raised his eyes, running his gaze over empty shelves plastered with dust and cobwebs. The only window had been boarded shut, but the last of the daylight leaked around the cracks, throwing long shadows across the floor.

The room was empty. Empty, except for...

His palms were damp with sweat as he started forward. On one of the shelves against the far wall, he caught a glimpse of something emerald buried in the shadows. It was a doll, with dark hair and black eyes; just one of the dozens that had once filled this room. It must have been left behind. Somehow, it had been passed over when the house had been cleared.

It wasn't until then that he realized he had been holding his breath, and he let it out in a quiet sigh. He picked the doll up, tilting it to the light to see it better.

Behind him the slamming of a door broke the silence.

Muraki jumped, the doll slipping, forgotten, from his grip. And then there was an arm around his waist, a wide hand pinning his wrists together, pulling him back against a strong chest. And there was the cold kiss of a knife at his throat.

"Hello, hello?" The words were a soft purr against his ear. Muraki's eyes widened, and he bit his lip. He didn't struggle, couldn't have struggled if he had wanted to, because he knew that voice. Knew it sharply and suddenly, like something remembered from a dream.

"Well," said The Corinthian. "What have we here?"


	3. Chapter 3

"What are you?"

The Corinthian laughed, releasing his wrists and giving Muraki a sharp shove in the back of the shoulder so he stumbled to his knees. "What am I?" He took a handful of silvery hair, forcing Muraki to turn and face him.

He wore dark sunglasses, but that didn't make it any less uneasy, knowing what was behind them. Each eye socket was empty and lined with jagged teeth. And behind those not muscle and meat and bone, but deep black wells. Endless and dark and hungry... Muraki had seen them in his dream, but he knew they were real, and he knew what they were for.

"What am I, Kazutaka?" The Corinthian asked quietly. He twisted the knife in his right hand, making it dance around his fingers. Muraki glanced at the weapon, but he knew how fast it could be moved and he kept still.

"A demon. You're a demon."

"That's very clever of you." The Corinthian grinned, dragging the edge of the knife gently over Muraki's cheek. "But wrong." He traced his lips with the tip of the blade. "Stop trembling. You don't want my hand to slip, do you?"

Muraki closed his eyes, and The Corinthian paused, the knife resting in the little hollow beneath his lower lip. "I'm just a murderer, Kazutaka. I'm no different from you."

"I'm not a murderer."

"Well, of course not yet." The Corinthian lowered his free hand to rest over Muraki's heart. "But soon. All that potential... can't you feel it?"

Muraki opened one eye, the corner of his lips twitched into a sneer. "You're insane."

"Oh?" The Corinthian drew his hand back, struck him backhanded across the face. He pulled the slap, but Muraki's head snapped to the side. "And here," he said calmly, "I thought I was doing you a favor..."

"Why did I dream about you?" Muraki hissed, and tasted blood on his lips. He didn't turn back to face him, because he was afraid that if he did it would only be to meet a gaze lined with fangs... "You're not human."

"But I am. I'm more human than most people will ever be able to imagine. Pure, concentrated human impulse. In all its maliciousness and envy and pettiness and beauty."

He slipped a hand under Muraki's jaw, turning him back gently. "You're bleeding. I didn't hurt you, did I?" There was a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his lips, where he had been struck. With a cold smile tugging at his lips, The Corinthian leaned closer. His tongue flicked out, snake-like, following the taste of blood from the point of Muraki's chin, to his mouth.

"Stop it..." He tasted The Corinthian's breath - metallic and crimson - on his parted lips. Muraki tried to draw away, but the wall was at his back, a row of shelves beside him, leaving him nowhere to escape to.

"Kazutaka..." The Corinthian chuckled dryly. "You don't actually think I'm going to kill you, do you? You, my boy, have a calling. You're the stuff nightmares are made of."

"What are you talking about?" Muraki shook his head fiercely, to drive away the sharp stab of recognition he had felt at those words. They tugged at something inside of him, like a familiar voice calling to him on a crowded street. "I haven't killed anyone. That..." His hands curled into fists against the floor. "I am not my brother. I'm not like him."

"Dearest Saki, you mean?" Silver eyes narrowed at the mention of that name, and The Corinthian laughed, reaching out to set a hand lightly against the side of Muraki's face. "No, you're not like him, and thank goodness for that. He was so predictable; there was no art in what he did."

"He murdered them..." Muraki's voice pitched urgently, even more desperately than it had a moment ago, when he had been facing The Corinthian's knife.

"Yes, I know he did. And you're the only one who still cares."

"No..."

"Yes." The Corinthian smiled, and it might have been meant to be reassuring. Even in spite of the sharp teeth. "You're the one who's going to be remembered. You're the one who's going to keep them awake at night, just to drive their dreams away."

Muraki dug his heels into the floor, pushing his back up against the wall. "Don't. I..." He swallowed hard, lifting a shaking hand to his lips. "I'm going to be sick."

"Poor thing. Yes, the truth hurts, doesn't it?" The Corinthian shifted his weight forward, straddling Muraki's thighs with his knees. He pushed a few locks of hair from the younger man's face. "I want you to calm down now," he said quietly. "Breathe. That's good. Take a deep breath."

And he did. Slowly, the pounding of his heart quieted in his ears. The black edges faded from his vision. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?" Muraki whispered, as soon as he was sure he could speak.

"Certainly not. You have your whole life ahead of you." Smiling, The Corinthian reached for his sunglasses, and as he begin to tug them off, Muraki found himself unable to look away. Unable to move. "We're just going to have a little fun."

And he knew, as soon as he looked at The Corinthian's face, that any chance he might have had to escape was gone. "Don't..."

"Don't?" The Corinthian chuckled from all three mouths, and he was close enough that Muraki felt the humid spill of breath against his face. "Don't what?"

Muraki tried to turn away, but fingers closed around his jaw, holding him still so he had no choice but to face the darkness behind The Corinthian's gaze. "Don't... hurt me," he whispered.

"Oh, Kazutaka." The Corinthian lifted his knife, and it was pale against the shadows that fell between them. He held the blade gently to Muraki's throat, and twisted it, cutting the top button from his shirt. "I think it's a little late for theatrics, don't you?"

Before Muraki could answer, there was a mouth on his. Hot and demanding, slick and silky and sweet. He had never been kissed like that before, and his lips parted a little beneath it. The Corinthian's blade danced down his shirtfront and the buttons fell one by one, the fabric parting over his chest.

He had only a moment to feel the sting of cold air, and then hands raked up his ribs. Wide palms worn rough by the hilt of a knife, long delicate fingers... they trailed down his chest, tracing the grooves between muscles, pausing a moment over his heart to feel the staccato rhythm. The Corinthian slid his hands back up to his shoulders, easing his shirt away. He twisted the fabric around his forearms, binding Muraki's hands behind his back.

He gasped; jerked against the bonds sharply, as though awakening from a dream. They weren't tight, but they were clever enough. They would hold for now.

The Corinthian touched his cheek lightly, drawing Muraki backto face him. "Scream," he purred, and one hand dipped low, flicking open his belt, drawing the leather across his palm as he pulled it free.

"Not a fucking chance."

The Corinthian tossed the belt aside. "You'll change your mind."

He closed a hand around Muraki's throat, pushing him back against the wall, and he lifted his knife for the younger man to see. "You have very beautiful eyes, Kazutaka. I wonder... has anyone ever told you that before?"

"You said you weren't going to kill me." Muraki sneered, but his gaze never left the weapon, his hands never stopped shaking. "I can't stand liars."

"I didn't lie. I have far too much respect for you to lie." It was nearly dark now, and the blade of the knife was a ribbon of white. "But I did come all this way to find you, and I'm starved."

The Corinthian flashed him a reckless grin. And slowly, the knife came down.


	4. Chapter 4

He woke with a gasp from a sleep without dreams.

The light was turned low, monochrome gray; pain, distant but familiar like an old friend lingered at his temples and the small of his back.

"Hey. Are you awake?"

Muraki started at the sound of that voice, began to claw upright until hands fastened around his shoulders, pushing him back.

"Shit… Calm down. You're in the hospital. Muraki… It's okay, now."

And, slowly, his vision cleared and the darkness retreated into the corners of the room. The bite of needles in his arm, the dreamy haze of morphine… "Oriya," he murmured, letting his head fall back. Things looked strange, out of focus, ringed with black around the edges, and Muraki reached to rub at his eyes. Soft bandages crossed the bridge of his nose, and he traced them slowly with two fingertips. Over his cheekbone, down nearly to the corner of his mouth… back up toward his right eye.

Oriya's hand snapped around his wrists, stilling him. "Don't."

Muraki tensed against his grip. "What's wrong with my eye?"

"Muraki…"

He pulled his hand back, and he felt something in his chest tighten, like a fist. "Is it gone?"

"Muraki, it's…" Oriya backed off a step, sinking into the chair next to the bed. "Yeah. Gone."

Muraki shivered. Because… he remembered now. All of it.

"I feel much better now that I've eaten," The Corinthian had said. A ribbon of blood trickled from the corner of his eye, thin and dark like a crack in porcelain. He glanced back. "I'm not losing you now, am I, Kazutaka?"

He had tried to scream, but no sound came out. He had lost his voice a long time ago.

At least he couldn't feel any pain; it had been driven deep inside, where no one could see or touch. And all that was left was a vague and empty feeling, a hole where madness could leak in.

"You look very beautiful. You're in shock, you know. Are you cold?" The Corinthian had grinned, slid two crimson fingertips past Muraki's lips.

He had tasted his own blood, and he had choked on it.

Muraki's throat clenched with the memory.

"Try to take it easy, okay?" Oriya said weakly. "You've been asleep for three days."

"What happened?"

"Muraki…" Oriya shook his head, drawing his hand back slowly. "It was a serial killer. He got four others before you. You're…"

"Lucky to be alive?" Muraki finished bitterly.

"Yeah, I think so." Slowly, Oriya reached for his hand, as though expecting to be rejected.

Muraki glanced down, but said nothing at first. He even shifted a little to make it easier for Oriya to lace their fingers together. Everything about him had been washed of color since the last time Muraki had seen him. His hair was loose around his shoulder, tangled and dull. His dark eyes, bloodshot, ringed in black bruises. "You look terrible. You've been here all night, haven't you?"

Oriya stiffened slightly, as though fighting off a sharp pain. "Are you okay, Muraki?"

The corner of his lips twitched. "What do you think?"

"I… never know what to think about you." Oriya sighed. "What were you doing there? In that house?"

"I had to go back there. Did you follow me?"

"Yeah." Oriya looked away, and for a moment Muraki was struck by the thought that he shouldn't have looked that guilty. Not when he had probably saved his life. "I thought you'd be pretty pissed, but I guess… I had to go there, too."

Muraki was silent a moment, and then he reached out, dragging Oriya's hair away from his face. And he wasn't really surprised when the fingertips that passed over his skin came away damp with tears. "There's no need for that," he said quietly. "I'm still here."

"I know." Oriya raised his head sharply, as though snapping awake, lifting a shaky hand to wipe at his face. "I know, damnit. I was just worried."

"Worried?" Muraki echoed. "You shouldn't have worried. He… wasn't going to kill me."

"What…? How can you say that?"

"He just wanted to talk about a few things. He just wanted to… make me see." Slowly, he lifted a hand to rest just below his right eye. "And I can. I can see so much more clearly now."

"Stop it," Oriya snapped, hand tightening convulsively around Muraki's. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know yet," Muraki said. "But it's something… I can't ignore." His breath caught, and slipped from his throat in a quiet sob. "What's going to happen to me now?"

He looked up, caught Oriya's gaze for a moment. And he could see reflected there all the shadows that swirled behind his own eyes. He jerked upright, arms tightening around Oriya's shoulders. He turned his face against Oriya's throat so that his tears were lost in the heat of his skin before they could really fall. "What happens to me now?"

For a long moment, the only sound was his own ragged breathing, and then a hand came to rest on the back of his neck, holding him close. "Now," Oriya said quietly, "there's nothing to be afraid of. I'll keep you safe."

Muraki's grip tightened; the needle in his arm shifted painfully beneath his skin. "You don't understand."

Oriya sighed, and Muraki felt it all through him. In the rise of his chest, the catch of his throat, the hot breath spilled against his jaw… "You're wrong. I do understand. And I'll protect you. Even from yourself, Muraki."

~The End


End file.
